Today’s ever-changing and increasingly-competitive world makes life complicated for product developers such as you. Hence, you are perpetually in a race to launch better products and increase profitability.

In order to help you realize your product promise, we are glad to introduce you to ANSYS Structures R19 with various improvements and additions. As a result of the new release, you’ll find exciting and innovative technologies which make the development of complex products effortless with help of improved solver capabilities, better usability, integration of complex physical phenomenon and solver scale-up using HPC.

Enhanced Utility and Scale-Up

This year ANSYS brings in some radical changes to help you capitalize on your current and future ANSYS investments. Starting off, the following will enhance the utility of ANSYS for many applications and help in speeding up run time.

The inclusion of small sliding algorithms helps significantly reduce the time involved in contact detection by performing contact search only at the beginning of the analysis. So, this leads to faster solutions.

Additions to the user interface such as Selection Clipboard helps you save selection information intermittently. Hence you can retrieve it whenever necessary to define BCs, Named Selection, etc.

Material Plots help in visualizing material assignments to the components and also to have a holistic understanding of materials in the assembly.

Improvements in meshing and contact algorithm is another development. Therefore, this will lead you to a faster problem definition in the interactive environment of ANSYS Mechanical.

In conclusion, this article serves as a good foundation to further understanding. There is much more to learn about ANSYS Structures R19. Join us on April 12 for the ANSYS Structures R19 Update Webinar to get the details! Register now.

How we use simulations has changed drastically since its inception. A couple of decades back simulations were majorly used for research purpose. But today it is used for various applications ranging from airplanes to microfluidics. Simulations have also evolved to handle more complex problems in smaller run times. ANSYS, a leading simulation software company is constantly innovating to make simulation easier to use and at the same time making them more robust. With every release, the GUI is getting better and the solver is getting smarter. Hence, without further ado, let’s take a dive into a few enhancements in ANSYS Fluids R19.

In this article, I will discuss some of these developments however, I recommend you to join the upcoming webinar that I will deliver on April 17.

Enhancements for Spray Modelling

The new feature in ANSYS Fluids R19 would significantly reduce the computational effort needed for spray nozzle designers to optimize product performance. CFD has been used for modelling sprays for a while now. Multiple approaches are available for spray modelling namely, full resolution (resolving all the length scales in the spray), semi-empirical (uses empirical correlation for droplet break up and stability analysis to generate droplet data), etc. ANSYS Fluids R19 has significantly enhanced spray modelling using VOF (volume of fluid)-to-DPM (discrete phase modelling) approach. As a result, you can directly track interface instabilities and surface tension effects that result in ligament and droplet formation. Due to this, you’ll get fast, accurate spray breakup and droplet distribution with minimal effort.

Accurate Preventive Maintenance

Engineers seeking to maximize up time and optimize preventive maintenance programs need to reliably predict the location and extent of erosion in pipelines that are carrying particle-laden flows. Previously, static meshes could not account for structural changes in the pipe caused by erosion and its subsequent impact on fluid flow, thereby reducing prediction accuracy. New technologies in Fluent R19 automatically couple structural changes due to erosion with a dynamic mesh so that the simulation more fully captures the degradation arising from erosion.

Erosion Modeling

More Computational Power

To empower the users with more computational power, significant changes have been made to the High-Performance Computing (HPC) solution.

High-Performance Meshing Technologies that help in meshing the complex geometries at lightning speed. Higher Productivity.

All core solver technologies utilize four (4) cores without HPC License Checkout. HPC products add on top of these four cores. Hence, this gives you more value for money.

ANSYS Fluids R19: Other Noteworthy Enhancements

Blade flutter modelling

Risk assessment for Urea Solid Deposition for SCR

Lagrangian wall film

Thermolysis model

Local residual scaling for multiphase

Shar/Dispersed discretization schemes with Mixture Multiphase

FSI: Accurate leakage flows through narrow gaps

Species mass transport improvements

Cavitation modelling improvements

Native rolling ball fillets

Variable shroud gap

New Workbench templates

In conclusion, this article has only covered the tip of the iceberg. There is much more to learn about ANSYS Fluids R19. Join us on April 17 for the ANSYS Fluids R19 Update Webinar to get the details! Register now.

With the advent of one more new year, ANSYS has released a new Electromagnetics Suite with a new, dynamic and user-friendly interface. Evidently, the new release also comes with more computation power and new license packaging which will deliver an incredible amount of value to the current and future customers. In addition, ANSYS follows the tradition of taming complexities and spurring the productivity with every new version. Consequently, there are several new features announced in ANSYS HFSS R19 for you to consider!

In this article, I will discuss some of these developments however, I recommend you to join the upcoming webinar that I will deliver on April 10.

Taming Complexities

ANSYS HFSS R19 delivers an all-new Radar Cross Section (RCS) calculations, by integrating Savant (HFSS SBR+) capabilities into ANSYS Electronics Desktop for tighter integration for large-scale problems. More so, this capability is based on ANSYS’ industry-leading shooting-and-bouncing ray plus (SBR+) method to predict far-field radar signatures for 3-D target models. The powerful and accurate asymptotic methods of HFSS SBR+ allow our users to solve computationally large simulations very quickly and is a great asset for engineers designing military and aerospace applications, such as advanced target recognition systems and stealth technology

RCS Simulation

Spurring Productivity

With every new release, ANSYS promises deliver solutions that greatly enhance productivity and create a more seamless workflow at every stage. Therefore, ANSYS has constantly been empowering engineers to accomplish more in shorter timelines.

R19 comes with a new interface. Specifically, the ribbon-based interface improved the overall flow from modeling to setup solving of the problem. As a result, users with little or no simulation experience can easily understand the simulation workflow, set up and solve high-frequency electromagnetic field simulations. Hence this would greatly increase the productivity and reduce the learning curve.

To empower the users with more computational power, two significant changes have been made to out our High-Performance Computing (HPC) solution. Furthermore, some notable improvements in the solver speed with GPU acceleration. Therefore, these developments would reduce the computation time for faster time to market.

Now all core solver technologies utilize four (4) cores without HPC License Checkout. HPC products add on top of these four cores. Hence, greater value for your money!

Finally, ANSYS has unified the electronics high-performance computing (eHPC) with the other ANSYS HPC licenses. One ANSYS HPC license for across all physics!! Consequently, this development will increase the productivity of your HPC licenses.

Therefore,with all these enhancements, ANSYS HFSS R19 delivers the most comprehensive set of solvers and HPC technologies in a single package on the market. In conclusion, users can now perform more comprehensive design exploration through simulation using the accurate and reliable gold standard technology of HFSS.

ANSYS HFSS R19: Other Noteworthy Enhancements

New Ribbon Interface for all Desktop Products helps streamline process

This article focuses on how engineering simulations help better design transfer chutes for their smoother functioning and enhanced equipment life.

Transfer chutes are used widely for handling bulk materials. They can be used to change the direction of material flow and transfer material from one conveyor to another conveyor. A chute might seem to be a petty component in a huge plant, but it plays a significant role. If you don’t design the chute properly, you’ll witness a high maintenance cost, increased downtime and particle breakage. On the other hand, a well-built transfer chute can help reduce noise, decrease damage to conveyor belts and transfer chute walls, and reduce dust formation.

Prior to getting to design, I will list down the essential requirements for a good transfer chute design:

Avoid material clogging

Minimal equipment wear

Minimal material degradation

DEM-Based Approach for Designing Transfer Chutes

Getting the optimum chute design is a time-consuming task because transfer chutes are not designed properly most of the times. For the above-mentioned design considerations, there are many constraints that you will need to apply while designing transfer chutes.

Discrete Element Method (DEM) can help designers such as you design better transfer chutes in lesser time. DEM can help you visualize the flow of particles (material) in transfer chute and provide useful data pertaining to each particle and all the boundaries in the chute. Needless to say, it is impossible to derive such level of detail from physical trials or finite element analysis. Besides providing much needed qualitative insights, DEM simulations enable you with the freedom to explore new designs and test them without the need for physical trials.

In the following sections, I’ll explain how Rocky DEM software will help you design high quality transfer chutes.

Avoid Material Clogging

Blockages in transfer chutes restrict the flow of material through the chute. Not only are blockages a detriment to the transport efficiency, but also they exert a lot of stress on the chute walls leading to serious damage. To make transfer chutes less prone to material blockages, impact angle should be decided based on material properties and inlet speed should also be tweaked accordingly.

Rocky DEM has all the capabilities necessary to address the needs for wet and dry material handling. Different material properties such as the rolling friction, static friction for particle interactions, elastic modulus, bulk density, adhesion coefficients can be accounted for. A unique capability of Rocky DEM is the availability of adhesion models that can replicate the flow of wet materials. This would foster the simulation of materials such as wet mortar in the construction industry or some crucial unit operations with wetting ingredients in the process industry.

Minimize Equipment Wear

Wear leads to increased maintenance cost not only for transfer chutes, but also for the conveyor belt. Abrupt changes in material flow direction is one major reason for surface wear. The smoother the flow, the lesser will be the damage to transfer chutes. The angle at which the material hits the walls of the chute largely affects the wear. This angle will depend on the material velocity and properties of the material. Modification can be done to the chute design to minimize wear, such as by adding a curved guide surface at the mouth of the chute to direct the flow and make it smoother.

As you will understand, making these changes in physical trials and capturing test data is cumbersome. With Rocky DEM, this task is just a few clicks away. You can use any CAD tool to make geometry changes and then bring it into Rocky DEM to simulate performance of modified designs. Rocky DEM will provide you wall impact force; using this, you can decide the optimum velocity and finalize the most suitable design for the transfer chute.

Instantaneous Shear Power for a transfer chuteMean Shear Power for a transfer chute.

Minimize Material Degradation

The quality of the end product decides its price. Undesired material breakage and extravagant segregation or degradation can lead to a poor quality process outcomes. Particle degradation occurs due to impact on chute and shear either from collisions with walls or with other particles. Information about the forces that a particle experiences can give an indication of how much damage will occur.

Rocky DEM not only provides forces on each particle, but also simulates breakage of particle under higher forces using models which are backed by years of research. You can visualize the particle actually breaking into fragments as it proceeds through the chute.

Rocky DEM: Helping You Engineer Better Transfer Chutes

Designing Transfer Chutes is a complex process and testing multiple designs is an expensive affair. However, Rocky DEM makes it simpler, cost-effective, lesser equipment maintenance and upkeep, and helps you to produce a better quality product. It has the ability to

analyze large number of particles quickly due to its multi-GPU capabilities,

represent particle shapes used in your industry, and

multiple post-processing options to help you analyze the data efficiently.

Quite clearly, Rocky DEM will help you and your organization minimize prototype costs and product development times. You’ll recognize that these benefits will further accelerate product launches into the market and fetch your organization higher profitability margins.

This article introduces you to a new, revolutionary technology calledANSYS Discovery Live. This technology provides instantaneous simulation results through an interactive design exploration experience for fluids, structural, and thermal studies.

With the inception of 4th industrial revolution, also called Industry 4.0, every industry is changing rapidly with groundbreaking innovations. In turn, this has placed a severe strain on the product development cycle. Innovative products need to be brought faster to market to reduce opportunity cost. This context has only reinforced my belief to expand the Simulation-Driven Product Development approach like never before.

Engineering simulation, though utilized for industrial applications for several years, is still underused and used by experts. A decade ago, it was difficult to learn and master such a technology. Often executing a simulation task end-to-end took time to set up and run. In 2007, ANSYS, Inc. launched ANSYS Workbench as, what I believe was, the first step to democratize simulation adoption. Since then, and along with rapid advancements and easy availability of computer hardware, simulation adoption has grown leaps and bounds.

Greater Power to Design Engineers?

However, until late last year, I felt that there is a stronger need to foster a greater collaboration between the design and simulation engineers. From my experience, I have seen simulation engineers complain about “geometry cleanup for simulation of each design” on one end and design engineers complaining about “huge time taken by an analyst for each design validation” on the other end. With such a to and fro between both teams, there is such a huge market need that needed to be filled. Though there are many engineering simulation software products in the market, no one could democratize the simulation to potentially elevate the role of designers in product development. Although the design engineers have a very important role to play in the product development cycle, they have largely been restricted to developing CAD models at best.

In Fall 2017, ANSYS, Inc. conducted a webinar on a new, revolutionary technology that was going to “change how the simulation was done”. My colleagues from CADFEM Germany called it Das ist der Hammer (translation: it’s awesome). Rarely does a product match its hype, but several of us were blown away while watching the webinar on ANSYS Discovery Live (ANSYS DL). In a whole lot of ways, ANSYS DL is disruptive and it made me rethink how I have been doing simulations.

What is ANSYS Discovery Live?

ANSYS Discovery Live is the newest technology from ANSYS, Inc. HQ at Canonsburg, PA. With this technology, every engineer can use to perform instantaneous multiple physics simulation of virtual prototypes to understand the behavior of the product design.

The development team has leveraged on the advancements in Graphical Processor Units (GPUs), developed new discretization techniques along with their knowledge of advanced parallel solver technology. ANSYS DL is built on Direct Modeler tool called SpaceClaim platform to import and modify the solid geometry with ease. Once you define the physics and boundary conditions, you’ll get results in no time. This is instantaneous, real-time simulation! The technology in ANSYS DL has automated the steps of meshing, building the finite element model, solving and extracting the results in few seconds to give you an insight into your design.

How does ANSYS Discovery Live change things?

Design engineers tell me frequently that several ideas go untested and they are totally dependent on the analysts. I could hardly do anything, but empathize with them. On the other hand, executing any simulation task leaves analysts with limited time to explore different design concepts.

With ANSYS DL, design and simulation engineers can quickly discover the behavior of their product live and instantaneously. ANSYS DL has created a fundamental shift by moving from design verification to experimenting and gaining deeper understanding. This is a huge benefit because you can evaluate several design iterations early in the design cycle. The ease of setting up the problem in ANSYS DL enables design engineers to quickly check the ideas in a shorter time frame. This also allows them to reduce dependency on the simulation engineer. The latter will still continue to perform traditional simulation tasks, but ANSYS DL gives design engineers more power to contribute to product development.

ANSYS DL marks the next step by ANSYS, Inc. to further democratize simulation adoption across different industries.

How can CADFEM help you?

Greater Understanding of Hardware for Simulations. Partnership with major brands such as HP and NVIDIA allows us to help you select the appropriate hardware for your simulation tasks.

Strong technical expertise will help you solve your engineering problem.

Download ANSYS DL & Attend Webinar

ANSYS DL is available as a Technology Preview until February 7. With this preview, you can test the pre-release locally on your machine by downloading or through your favorite internet browser.

Download ANSYS DL today. Also you must attend the ANSYS DL Webinar as we kick start the 2018 CADFEM Technical Webinar Series. You can do this by accessing the below links.

DOWNLOAD ANSYS Discovery Live (until Feb 7). You will need to register using a form and then you’ll get instant access to this exciting technology!

In a previous article, I mentioned about design & analysis of antenna using electromagnetic simulation and important aspects to be considered. In this article, I explain effect of a platform on radiation characteristics and how hybrid solving methods can help towards effective antenna placement.

It has become routine for automotive OEMs to integrate different types of antennas in their vehicles. In recent years, many industry professionals have been focusing on implementing projects related to Internet of Things (IoT). There’s ever-growing demand for IoT integration for consumer electronics, vehicles and so on. Consequently, estimating actual performance of the antenna with any platform (vehicles, electronic devices and buildings) is becoming challenging!

In recent years, automotive industry is introducing Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) for automating and enhancing the vehicle system and its safety. The growing interest for wireless connectivity relies more and more on integrated antenna solutions customized for optimal system performance, and any failure can cause the delay in a critical product launch. ANSYS provides the technology for the various solution techniques for simulating individual antenna to final placement for estimating various characteristics.

Hybrid Solving Methods for Antenna Placement

You can easily assess the effect of the platform on the performance of the antenna using Hybrid Solving Methods. You can apply traditional approaches such as the finite element method (FEM), Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) to problems of moderate electrical size. Significant computational resources are necessary for these numerical methods. Therefore, we will need to further extend the capability of FEM to the solution of electromagnetic radiation and scattering problems. These could involve disjoint obstacles such as reflector antenna systems, antennas mounted on large platforms, and antennas in the presence of radome structures. To achieve this, several methods such as method of moments (MoM), high frequency techniques such as Physical Optics (PO) and Shooting & Bouncing Rays (SBR+) have been hybridized with FEM.

Furthermore, the below schematic will allow you to select an appropriate solution technique based on the geometric & material complexity and electrical size of the problem that you wish to solve.

Radiation Patterns of the Antenna after mounting it on the proposed platform

Coupling between Antennas placed on the platform.

Optimal Position for an Antenna over given platform.

Faster Computation Times

Finite Element Boundary Integral (FEBI) & SBR+

Among the several hybrid solving methods, I’ll focus on FEBI and SBR+ in this section. In both these methods, you simulate a part of the antenna with FEM. Then, you simulate the platform effects with either integral equations or high frequency techniques. To effectively calculate currents near the antenna, you need to analyze the antenna using the FEM and feed these results into FEBI or SBR+ methods.

In general, electrically large problems could be solved with FEBI technique & electrically larger problems can be solved with SBR+ technique. For a smaller problem scope, FEM will do the trick! Since both the hybrid methods are equally applicable for many problems, you’ll need to be aware of the subtle reasons for selecting the most appropriate method that is relevant to the platform. We can help you with this if you need any assistance!

The combined simulation with feed network analysis is also possible with the help of ANSYS Circuit Simulator. With this, you can interface field solver results with those from FEM-Hybrid Techniques.

Relevance to ADAS Applications

When we think about non-monitored driving, the ADAS system can handle all the situations: partial or full scenarios. Toyota President Aikido Toyoda recently said to ensure ADAS system safety, we need 8.8 billion miles of testing of autonomous vehicle design. This is not only expensive, but also impractical. ANSYS-Powered Simulations have a crucial role in ADAS because of availability of multiple software tools for different kinds of analysis and easy integration with others.

You can simulate Radar Antennas in Autonomous Vehicles with HFSS and conduct initial placement simulation with hybrid methods (FEBI or SBR+). We can simulate different driving scenarios that accounts for other vehicles, buildings, trees etc. by including detailed physics. This is possible by using HFSS SBR+. These virtual test results can be used to test & validate control algorithms and vehicle dynamics.

Summary

ANSYS Electromagnetic Simulation Software provide the necessary requisites to validate design and placement of the antennas for different applications. In addition, Hybrid Solving techniques provide for various benefits including faster computation times, optimal position studies among others.

Going a step further, you can extend these studies to ADAS applications by integrating results from ANSYS Electronics Simulation Software.

So, how does Tesla make it possible? Porous media cane help them achieve this. By porous, we can infer a substance to have minute interstices through which fluid may pass through it. Porous material is permeable if the interstices are interconnected or continuous thereby making a fluid to flow through them. Massive amount of consolidated energy wastage (due to improper combustion and left of un-burnt particles) happens due to this impure air. For efficient fuel burning, there is the pressing need to filter air before passing it through any combustion device. Another application that is quite relevant to this topic is of air conditioners – all pervasive at homes and our workplaces. In all these applications, impure air passes through a series of filters. The interstices present in these porous zone filter holds off solid dust particles and parses clean air.

Fluid Flow Effects in Porous Media

Example of Porous Zone with minute interstices through which fluid can pass through (Courtesy: ANSYS Inc.)

Design and shape of the filter plays a crucial role in evading compressor surge and improving the performance of a system as a whole. It is very crucial to keep the flow conditions at a minimum total pressure drop by adopting a filtration system that suits the operational environment.

During filtration, fluid experiences certain changes such as:

static pressure rise due to diffusion,

reduction in the flow energy, thereby making it more laminar based on the porous medium’s permeability,

heat transfer effects through the porous zone, etc.

Today simulation plays a significant role in understanding filter performance and filter housing design to deliver adequate air flow distribution by translating a physical scenario into a math-based numerical model. As simulation engineers, we will need to model porous media to recreate these effects.

Using ANSYS FLUENT interface, I will explain the process here onward. In ANSYS FLUENT, porous media model adds a momentum sink in the governing momentum equations. You can model this in two ways:

Using cell zone conditions

Porous jump boundary conditions, especially if our only concern is about the pressure drop.

The approach to model porous media using porous jump boundary conditions is useful when we don’t have all the necessary flow transport properties. With this approach, however, you can expect a decline in accuracy because you need to assign the boundary conditions only on the surfaces. This makes it critical for the solver to understand a sudden rise in the pressure value at the imposed location.

Inertial and Viscous resistances are the coefficients combined with other parameters of the Hagen-Darcy’s equation. This equation calculates pressure drop across the porous zone. This zone provides the capability to model pressure drop inside the fluid volume in the axial direction. The pressure drop in this medium is contributed due to viscous and inertial resistances; we can define it as:

∆p = ∆pViscous + ∆pInertial

where the pressure drop due to viscous resistance is given as the product of viscous resistance coefficient, thickness of the porous zone, viscosity of the fluid and the velocity of the flow. Since we provide viscosity, thickness (from the geometric model), velocity of the fluid (as calculated by the solver at the corresponding place in the domain through iterations) and the coefficient (user input values), solver calculates the pressure drop attributed due to this viscous effect loss.

Similarly, the pressure drop due to inertial losses is given as the half product of inertial resistance coefficient, square of the velocity of the fluid, thickness of the porous zone and density of the fluid. Take sufficient care while entering coefficient values into the software; sometimes the values may be given of the negative exponential order. Confusion arises because coefficient is represented as C¹= 1/K. In the software, you need to enter the value of K to accurately account for the right coefficient value.

Cut Section View. Sample model of an inlet filtration unit for a gas turbine generator. Blue-colored components act as walls while inlet and outlet. I mounted the three series of weather hoods at the front intakes air from atmosphere through porous zone packed beds arranged beneath.Streamlines on a planar section colored with pressure as variable, originating from the inletTotal pressure drop in the planar section view. The blue colored region is due to the lack of fluid presence at that region.

Achieve Faster Convergence

Occasionally, the convergence rate slows down when the pressure drop is relatively large in the flow direction. For example, when the coefficient value of C² is large or permeability (alpha) is low, convergence rate is slower. You can resolve this by providing a good initial guess for the pressure drop across the medium. You can obtain the initial guess from two ways:

by performing standard initialization, or

by supplying an initial flow field without the effect of the porous region by temporarily disabling the porous media model.

Frequently-Asked Questions: The Top Three

Direction vectors, especially for conical or cylindrical faces, are automatically calculated by ANSYS FLUENT. Engineers fail to check if the direction vectors are normal to the surface. If the direction vectors are not normal to the surface, then results will be incorrect. Be careful, there!

Does every porous flow application have pressure losses due to the combination of both the viscous and inertial effects? The CADFEM’s Support Hotline gets this question quite often. The answer is no. For laminar flows, you’ll not find any inertial effects. Whereas for flows through a planar porous media (not a standard industrial use case though), you’ll not find viscous effects as well.

I don’t have the either of the viscous or inertial coefficient values. With information about pressure drop across the porous zone, can I simulate the fluid flow? This one is tricky because the pressure drop is due to the combined effect of both the inertial and viscous effects. Without knowledge about the significant contribution to the pressure loss due to either effect, it’s impossible to accurately model the flow. However if you are willing to ignore one of the two effects, then you can utilize the information about pressure drop to model the flow.

It’s not difficult to model porous flow problems, however you need to right software and the right partner to guide you through the solution. Talk to us, and we’ll glad to help you!

This article will explain how ANSYS optiSLang can be used for robustness evaluation in virtual product development.

A successful product. Isn’t that the goal for every product company? It begins right from the step where engineers come up with world class product innovations to getting the right marketing mix that brings commercial success. Is every product successful? No. Is every product with a great design successful? Maybe.

The Symptom

Courtesy: Android Authority

More often than not, we find market leaders stumble with product failures. The infamous Samsung’s Note 7 will come to your mind instantly. Hundreds of users were at the forefront of dangerous incidents where phones caught fire due to short-circuiting. Samsung conducted severe internal testing and several independent investigations. They found that, in certain extreme situations, electrodes inside each battery crimped, weakened the separator between the electrodes, and caused short circuiting. In some other cases, batteries had thin separators in general, which increased the risks of separator damage and short circuiting. Economics-wise, the incident caused Samsung to recall 2.5 million devices, lose over $5 billion and damaged its reputation.

Such glaring errors after product launch, with severe economic implications, aren’t limited to Samsung and Takata alone. Honda, Michelin and many more companies have been involved in product recalls due to design failures.

Obviously, such design flaws need to be mitigated. Isn’t it?

The Probable Solution

To preempt design failures, today’s engineers use state-of-the-art engineering technology. Traditionally, product development teams used extensive prototyping and testing to validate design variants during the design life cycle. Of course, this is cumbersome, expensive and time-consuming.

Over the past few decades, engineering simulations have opened up a whole new range of possibilities for the design engineers. ANSYS, Inc., the market leader for engineering simulations, provides state-of-the-art technology to simulate systems involving mechanical, fluid, electrical, electronic and semiconductor components. With added insight, design engineers are able to test a lot more design variants on a virtual platform using this technology.

Consequently, the benefits – innovation, lowered cost of product development, higher product profitability and faster time-to-market. The staggering economic benefits and tremendous value on the offer have prompted several product companies to introduce simulations upfront using a Simulation-Driven Product Development approach.

Companies like Samsung and Takata were power users of engineering simulations. They used technology extensively in their design phase and perform virtual tests to validate designs. Only validated designs were put through production, QA and then sent off to the market. Despite simulating and validating designs, these companies witnessed monumental product failure in the market that caused loss of life, led to economic losses and damage to their reputation.

If they used simulation-driven product development, what went wrong?

The Cause

While the probable solution can mitigate and even eliminate design failures, there are other forces at play that you will need evaluate carefully. Hence it is imperative to understand the root cause for occurrence of design failures despite conducting extensive state-of-the-art simulations.

Many design engineers often undermine or do not consider one important aspect due to lack of proper understanding. Variability. Just as design parameters such as thickness or physical loads can be varied to test different design variants, some parameters display inherent variability.

Let me explain it with a material parameter: Young’s Modulus. If you’re an engineer by qualification, you would’ve come across the Universal Testing Machine (UTM) in your freshman or sophomore year of college. To test the Young’s Modulus of any given material (say steel), the UTM pulls a material specimen at extreme ends to create tension. Using mathematical calculations, you’ll arrive at a number close to 210 MPa as the Young’s Modulus of mild steel. Let’s say you repeat this test for 99 other specimens of the same material. Each test result will be different and it will never be the same. Other than the odd case of a faulty UTM apparatus, there’s only one reason for that. Natural Scatter.

The Hero: Robustness Evaluation

Such variability (statistical) will lead to variability in the performance parameters of the product. Obviously this is quite important and engineers need to assess designs for variability well ahead of product launch. For variability, you have only one way to assess designs for product failure or risks: Robustness Evaluation.

The preferred choice of tool for robustness evaluation is ANSYS optiSLang. For better understanding, there is a lot of material available in more detail. Instead of reading, you may also want to consider watching these webinars here and here.

Can you attribute lack of design robustness to any other product failures that you have witnessed? Do you have alternate views? Please let me know in the comments section.

This article explains how ANSYS and few other tools can be used to perform hydraulic fracturing, or commonly known as fracking, to reduce costs and increase profitability of shale gas projects.

Shale Gas

Shale gas is a form of natural gas trapped within shale formations. Because of its abundance, shale gas is a lot cheaper than it has been in years. Hydraulic fracturing or fracking helps in extracting it efficiently.

According to American Enterprise Institute, “the direct benefit of increasing oil and gas production includes the value of increased production attributable to the technology. In 2011, the USA produced 8.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from shale gas wells. Taking an average price of $4.24 per thousand cubic feet, that’s a value of about $36 billion, due to shale gas alone.” As a result of increase in fracking, natural gas imports in United States reduced by 25 percent between 2007 and 2011.

What is Fracking?

The term simply means creating fractures using hydraulic fluids. In this technique, production teams pump huge volumes of water and proppant at high pressure into the gas well. They also mix a few chemicals, which improve fracking performance, along with the water during pumping. Shale layers, being less permeable, minimize the flow of the natural shale gas trapped.

Fracking is useful in creating a connected fractured network between pores of the rock through which natural gas escapes out. In the first step, production teams drill horizontally along the shale layers. From the perforations, specialists pumps water into the rock. Since water is sent in with high pressures, the shale layers fractures. Once the pressure is decreased, they retrieve water from the shale layers leaving behind sand particles. However, the proppant dwells in the rock layers keeping the cracks open thereby allowing gas to escape.

Benefits and Disadvantages of Fracking

Fracking helps in accessing the natural shale gas trapped deep down beneath the earth. With traditional methods of extraction, we cannot exploit this energy potential. Recently-developed methods of vertical and horizontal drilling added favor to fracking. They permit drilling thousands of feet deep inside the ground in order to access the trapped shale gas.

It is said that shale gas causes lesser air pollution when compared to other dirty fuels like coal and oil. However there are ways in which fracking itself can cause more devastating effectssuch as air emissions and climate change, high water consumption, water contamination, land use, risk of earthquakes, noise pollution, and health effects on humans.

Economic Benefits of Simulation

To achieve an optimal design for a gas well, standard industry practice is to conduct a large number of field trials that require high capital investment and time which significantly increases the project value.

In order to obtain a profitable production of shale gas, I recommend you to use a fully coupled 3D hydraulic-mechanical simulation. Obviously the costs of such simulation are a lot lower than traditional methods. Many of our customers in the Oil & Gas industry have yielded better output with a higher project profitability.

You can find the schematic view of simulating Hydraulic Fracture below.

Essential Pre-Requisites for Simulation

We gather the input data for simulation from different physics such as geology, petrophysics and geomechanics. From the geology of the rock structure, we extract the lithology and layering, altitudes of beddings and natural fracture data. Accurate determination of petrophysical properties for both the reservoir and fluid contents is necessary. We also need to consider features like porosity, permeability and saturation for the reservoir. It also includes evaluating the properties that help in determining the hydrocarbon concentrations in the reservoir and its ability to produce the gas.

Along with the surface and sub-surface properties of the rock, the in-situ stress parameters also have same importance in simulation. I also account for elastic properties and strength parameters of intact rocks. The geomechanical studies of the rock structure also reveal the strength parameters of natural fractures, if any. Using multiPlas, I model these rock-specific material parameters and joints.

Of course, gathering this data can look daunting to you. However our expertise combined with strengths from Dynardo GmbH – the leading global experts in simulation of hydraulic fracturing – can help!

Fracking Simulation – Readying the Model

In the simulation of fracking process, I use a sequential coupled hydraulic-mechanical modeling approach. Therefore, I construct two models – a hydraulic flow model and a mechanical model simultaneously.

3D model with different soil layers

To account the strength and stress anisotropies of the rock structure, I need to consider a 3D model. These variables help us to constantly monitor the behavior of fracking process. To capture the anisotropic nature of the rocks, you’ll need strength and stress anisotropies of the rock matrix and fracture system.

Sequentially Coupled Hydraulic-Mechanical Analysis in ANSYS

In ANSYS Mechanical, we start with a transient hydraulic flow analysis (analogous to transient thermal analysis) to understand the pore pressure field. The pressure increases in the fracture-initiated locations due to the pumping of fluid and low permeability of rock. If the pressure is large enough, the rock starts to fail and fractures open up. As a result, the permeability of the rock structure increases and changes the pressure distribution in the hydraulic flow model. From a mechanical perspective, pressure increase changes the effective stresses within the rock. After every fluid time increment, change in the mechanical forces from pore pressure change will be introduced into the mechanical analysis. The forces on every discretization point of the smeared continuum are computed from the pore pressure gradient.

I setup the coupling inside ANSYS in an explicit manner. Consequently, one iteration cycle is performed for every time step. The time step needs to adequately represent the progress of the fracture growth. At each time step, a transient hydraulic flow analysis starts first. Then the mechanical analysis with the updated pressure field from the hydraulic flow model is conducted. The mechanical analysis results in updated stress, plastic strain fields and hydraulic conductivities. i apply the updated hydraulic conductivities to the hydraulic model in the subsequent time step.

Crack expansion in the model

In mechanical analysis, the development of fractures is represented by a plastic model in ANSYS. As a result, I cannot directly measure fracture openings and hence I’ll need to calculate it based on the plastic strains.

Model Calibration & Optimization of Fracking Paramaters

Because of large number of statistically-varying and reservoir parameters, the reservoir model needs advanced calibration procedure. At first, I will need to calibrate numerical parameters such as maximum permeability of open joints or energy dissipation at pore pressure frontier.

After calibration of all the parameters, I identify the most important parameters contributing to maximum crack volume using optiSLang software. As you will recognize, maximum crack volume correlates to maximum shale gas output. I validate the behavior of such important parameters and then calibrate the analysis model to the field measurements. I use the calibrated model later in order to optimize the simulated volume and predict the gas production rate of the wells.

Summary & Outlook

Evidently, application of simulation to the fracking process will underline its predictability. Simulation cut downs the costs of field trials, brings down the time-to-market thereby significantly increases the project profitability.

If you’re into gas exploration, you should contact us filling this form or by writing to sales@cadfem.in. We’ll be glad to explain some of our recent projects that have benefited customers in Oil & Gas industry.

Virtual Product Development has enabled companies to predict with confidence that their product will thrive in the real world, helping them to the solve the most complex problems which are limited only by imagination. This wouldn’t have been possible without ANSYS, the market leader in engineering simulations, that is used by many companies spanning enterprises to startups. Consequently, one of the prime goals of these product companies is license management – manage software license requirements among different teams effectively without affecting team’s productivity or asset utilization.

In this article, I will describe the new developments in ANSYS 18.0 that will make it easier for managers and license administrators to manage licenses better.

How To Get Started?

To begin with, the first step in managing the licensing resources is to track current usage of these resources. Previously, tracking and preparing the reports of ANSYS software license usage was always a tedious manual task of looking into the log files and searching for a specific license. As a result, one common question I received on CADFEM’s support hotline -“Is there a better way to track our license usage?” With the release of ANSYS 18.0, this job has eased to a certain extent.

With ANSYS 18.0, License Management Center provides the tools which help license administrators to obtain effective reports from the usage log files. Therefore, reports can be extracted about anything from current usage to peak usage and license denials in a tabular or a histogram form for a requested duration.

ANSYS License Management Center

Opening the ANSYS License Management Center will open up the license manager in the default browser.

New subsection has been added for reporting with 4 options. We will discuss each of these options in brief.

Current License Usage

With the View Current License Usageoption, you can track current license usage. It highlights all available licenses on the server along with the maximum number of licenses. It also reports the current total license usage along with the license usage per user; different color for each user. In addition, clicking on Show Tabular Data will provide you more information about user count, user names, hostname and Start date in tabular format.

Current License Usage

Also, you can obtain similar data from Client ANSLIC_Admin Utility for older versions of ANSYS. For the manager and organization, the most important report is the licenses usage over a period of time. Next three options will help them in getting it.

License Usage History

License Usage History

This option helps in tracking the usage of license for a given period of time. Click on License Usage History and choose the duration and then click on Generate to obtain the histogram for the given duration. Once the data is generated, you get the option of monitoring the data for a specific license. Even a customized duration can be specified to track a particular license usage.

License Usage History – Specific License Type

Peak License Usage

License usage history report can be confusing at times even for experienced users. Hence if you want to track more simplified averaged peak usage per day for a given period of time, please select Peak License Usage option. By following similar steps as for License Usage History, select the time period and hit generate.

Peak License Usage

Here you will have more options for filtering out the data with respect to licenses type and months of specific interest. Along with it, you can also extract data for a complete week (24/7) or only for working days (24/5). Clicking on Show Tabular Data provides daily, weekly and monthly average of each license in a tabular form. Now, that’s going to be quite useful for the managers and licenses administrators.

Peak License Usage: Tabular Form

License Denials

Similar to Peak License Usage, the License Denials option will show the average denial of license due to insufficient licenses or for any other reason for a day for requested time duration. This helps in tracking the requirement and planning for future needs.

License Denials

Though the Reporting Tool in ANSYS doesn’t include more sophisticated options and filtering methods, it allows managers to track the license usage in many different ways without manually going through log files or investing in third-party tools.

License Management Made Easy

Thanks to ANSYS 18.0, License Management Center is even more potent and useful for you – the department heads, managers and license administrators. You can monitor license usage in real-time or historically, evaluate peak license demands and license denials. As a result, this new feature will allow you to evaluate asset utilization, manage internal license demands, forecast the need to acquire additional license among others.

There’s also a nice YouTube video that is a little more crisper than my article. It covers pretty most of the options that I have described in this article. If you are short on time, this video may help.

I would like to know if there are questions regarding license management that you’ve not been able to address so far. Maybe I can help? Hence please do use the comments section below to reach out to me. I’ll be glad to be of help.

I hope you found this article useful. Please feel free to share it with friends and colleagues. If you haven’t subscribed to this blog yet, please do so on the right side of this article or through this link.

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Founded in 1985, CADFEM is one of the pioneers of numerical simulation based on the Finite Element Method (FEM). CADFEM is one of the largest European suppliers of Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE). We work closely with ANSYS, Inc., a worldwide leading provider of CAE-software. CADFEM is the ANSYS Elite Channel Partner in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Through CADFEM International, our Products, Services, and Know-how are also provided by local CADFEM companies worldwide: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Great Britain, Ireland, Russia, India, China, the United States and North Africa. This helps us supporting our global customers with local companies and expertise. In India, CADFEM is the ANSYS Certified Channel Partner.